Theology for Everybody: Romansنموونە

One of the most sacred honors of being a pastor is having a front-row seat for the best and worst days of people’s lives. A pastor is there when a person is born and when they are buried. A pastor is there when a couple is married or divorced. Having a front-row seat to the seasons of struggle is an incredible opportunity to watch the Spirit rise to the level of the suffering believers experience. When Paul speaks about rejoicing in our sufferings, he is not saying we should rejoice because of the suffering itself but because the more we suffer, the more power and presence of the Spirit we receive. It is the Spirit in us who gets us through the suffering.

This passage is the first mention of the Holy Spirit since Romans 1:4, and coming up in Romans 8, Paul will have a lot to say about the Spirit, naming Him some 20 times. The more suffering we endure, the more of the Holy Spirit we experience.

When you are suffering or walking with someone through suffering, there are three things I find myself saying a lot as a pastor:

1. “If it happens now, it is because you are ready now.” This situation may not have happened previously because you were not ready to pass this level of testing.

2. “God does not cause all that you suffer, but He uses all that you suffer.” God is good, and sometimes our suffering is demonic, mysterious, or part of the fallen world. Nonetheless, as Jesus was attacked by Satan, suffered in ways we cannot understand, and lived in our broken world, God used it all for good. He does the same with our suffering.

3. “Suffering shifts our focus from what we have to who we will become.” Suffering involves kinds and degrees of loss. When life is going well and we feel strong, we focus a lot on what we have and how to protect it, enjoy it, and multiply it. When we suffer, we lose much of what we have (money, time, freedom, health, possessions, status, etc.). The silver lining in this rain cloud is that we focus on the one thing we have that cannot be taken from us: our character—the kind of person we want to be in the Spirit.

It is often said nothing in this life is guaranteed. One thing is guaranteed, though: if we suffer in the Spirit, we are guaranteed to rejoice in who we are becoming by God’s grace and power. For those who struggle to know how to do this, Jesus keeps it simple. He says in Luke 11:13 that God is a good Dad, and “The heavenly Father [will] give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” In the suffering and the struggle, simply stop and ask the Father for the Holy Spirit, and He will come to empower you as He did Jesus.

Today’s Reflection

What would it look like to suffer in the Spirit?